Carousel

Background

The precursors to the carousel may be as much as 1,500 years old when
baskets lashed to a center pole were used to spin riders around in a
circle in ancient Byzantium. During the twelfth century in Turkey and
Arabia, men and their horses played a game in which delicate balls filled
with perfumed water were tossed between riders. Losers would sport a
definite aroma, and winners were presumably the better horsemen. The game
was called
carosello,
or little war in Italian. At the French court in about 1500, this game
blossomed into an elaborate pageant with spectacularly outfitted horses
and riders. Horsemen added the challenge of trying to lance a small ring
while galloping at full tilt. If the rider snagged the ring, it pulled
away from a tree or posts with a stream of ribbons behind it. Contestants
could practice this game by mounting wooden "horses" that
were legless and resembled vaults used in gymnastics and that were mounted
to a circular platform. As the platform rotated, the riders would try to
spear the brass ring.

Craftsmen observed this play among the nobility and began building
platforms with wooden horses mounted on them for commoners and their
children to ride. These carousels were quite small because the power
source for turning the carousel was a mule, man, or horse. In 1866,
Frederick Savage, an English engineer, combined steam power with his
carousels and drew crowds to the European fairs he toured with his
machine. Steam-driven carousels reached the United States in about 1880.
Savage was also responsible for developing the system of overhead gears
and cranks that allow the suspended horses to move up and down as the
carousel turns and simulate an actual ride on horseback. As carousels
became more popular, they acquired a number of names including
karussell
(Germany),
carrousel
and
manages de chevaux
(France), gallopers and roundabouts (England), and merry-go-rounds,
whirligigs, spinning or flying jennies, dip-twisters, and flying horses
(United States). Today, preservationists tend to prefer the name carousel
over these others for its historic context.

The jewels of the carousel have always been the horses. Thanks to the
stream of immigrants from Europe, the United States had a thriving
carousel industry by the 1870s. Expert carvers, such as Gustav Dentzel
from Germany, had practiced cabinetry and carousel crafting in their
homelands and quickly established businesses in America. Carousel
factories like The American Merry-Go-Round & Novelty Company were
full-time manufacturers, but other makers including Charles Looff and
Charles Dare in New York City, Dentzel in Philadelphia, and Allan
Herschell in upper New York state transformed their furniture businesses
and machine shops into at least parttime carousel production. Wood workers
and carvers prided themselves on fashioning beautiful crested horses with
flashing eyes, flying manes, realistic poses (for both standers and
jumpers), and ornate ornamentation from flowers to heraldic crests, French
fleurs-de-lys, jeweled saddles and tassels, and patriotic symbols like
eagles and profiles of presidents. Of the carousel figures made in the
United States, 80% were horses and 20% were made up of a menagerie. The
Herschell-Spillman Company produced kangaroos, pigs, giraffes, sea
monsters, frogs, and dogs and cats.

The carousel's zenith in America was from about 1900 to the
Depression. During this period, jobs were plentiful, motor transport was
available, and amusements for the family were sought. Craftsmen were also
still in demand, but as technology advanced, it also invaded the carousel
business. Factories began to build cast aluminum horses (and animals cast
in fiberglass and plastic soon followed), and the carvers had to find
other trades. Repair work was available as the wooden horses aged, but
often amusement park operators resorted to patchwork maintenance instead.

In the early 1970s, the National Carousel Association was formed. Antique
horses began to sell on the auction blocks of Sothebys and Christies at
phenomenal prices, and collectors sought to acquire originals by carvers
like Salvatore Cernigliaro or Marcus Charles Illions. For those with
smaller pocketbooks, bisque porcelain figures and small-scale carousel
horses also became collectible. Today, only two or three carousel makers
practice their craft in the United States although there are many
hobbyists who carve their own horses and refurbish antiques.

The Basics of Carousel Operation

The carousel revolves around a stationary center pole made of metal or
wood. An electric motor drives a small pulley that is controlled by a
clutch for smooth starts. This pulley turns a drive belt and a larger
pulley that turns a small-diameter, horizontal shaft. The end of the shaft
is a pinion gear that turns a platform gear. The platform gear supports a
vertical shaft that turns another pinion gear and final drive gear
attached to the support beams of the carousel, called sweeps, which extend
outward from the center pole like the ribs of an umbrella and support the
platform, horses, and riders. The sweeps hold cranking rods that are
turned by small gears at the inner ends that are driven by a stationary
gear on the center pole. Horse hangers are suspended from the cranks, and
as they turn, the horses move up and down about 30 times per minute. A
typical carousel platform with horses and riders may weigh 10 tons and be
driven by a 10-horsepower electric motor. After the motor's
revolutions are reduced by the series of gears, the riders on the outer
row of mounts will gallop along at about 5-11 miles per hour.

Carousel griffin made by the Hershell-Spillman Co. of North
Tonawando, New York.

Carousels, with colorful figures attached to a revolving horizontal
mechanism, have amused the masses since the end of the 1700s. By 1800,
carousels were advertised as amusements as well as an activity that got
the blood circulating. After the Civil War, a number of merry-go-round
manufacturers started up businesses and popularized the carousel.

The griffin depicted here is the product of Hershell-Spillman Co. of
North Tonawanda, NY, a well-known carousel manufacturer nearly a century
ago. It is part of a 191 3 merry-go-round now operating six months of
the year in Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. With its one-man
band mechanism playing charming turn-of-the-century tunes, this carousel
remains a great favorite. It was a "park-style model,"
manufactured for permanent placement in a park. (Some, like one still
operating in Story City, Iowa, were designed to travel and were not for
permanent installation.) Children can ride horses, lions, tigers,
zebras, and even leaping frogs—all exquisitely carved and
painted. Today, carousel figures are treasured for their colorful
beauty, and carousel figure collectors pay thousands of dollars for a
single animal.

Nancy EV Bryk

Raw Materials

The two primary materials for a carousel are metal and wood. The metal
mechanism includes the electric/hydraulic motor, gears, bearings, and
crankshafts. Horse hangers and platform suspension rods are metal with
brass sleeves, and the center pole is steel. The wood parts of the
carousel include the

A typical carousel platform with horses and riders may weigh 10 tons
and be driven by a 10-horse-power electric motor.

horses, which are carved from basswood, the oak platform, sweeps,
rounding boards, panels, and mirror frames. The platform and various
panels and gingerbread work were made of wood or plaster in the old days,
and today they may be made of these same materials or may be cast in
plastic or fiberglass. The tent-like top is made of canvas. Music is
supplied by a band organ that is also electrically or mechanically powered
and plays much like those of a player piano. Specialty manufacturers
provide the organs.

Design

Design of a carousel begins in the middle at the center pole. A bearing at
the top of the pole bears the entire weight of the carousel. The sweeps
(arms or umbrella-like ribs) of the carousel are suspended from the top
bearing, and two rods extending down from each sweep support the platform.
About half-way down the center pole is a center bearing or hub that keep
the works from shifting from side to side. The motor, of course, spins the
whole umbrella structure around. From the midpoint, a series of diagonals
keep the center pole aligned with a cross-brace that rests on the ground.
A center pole that is 15 in (38.1 cm) in diameter will support about 50
horses and riders.

The Manufacturing
Process

The basic process of manufacturing a carousel has not changed despite the
fact that few are built today. No new carousels

The carousel revolves around a stationary center pole made of metal
or wood. An electric motor drives a small pulley that is controlled by
a clutch for smooth starts. Horse hangers are suspended from the
cranks, and as they turn, the horses move up and down about 30 times
per minute.

with wooden animals were made in the period from the 1930s to 1994, and
only about 10 new wood-horse machines have been made in the United States
in the last 60 years. All new wooden carousels are, therefore,
custom-made, although refurbishing old machines is also a part of this
industry.

When a carousel builder receives an order, he works with the customer to
determine the size of the machine based on cost and maintenance
considerations. Most carousels today may be built from scratch or from
refurbished mechanisms. In either case, today's maker must be a
metal fabricator with a shop to concoct the metal pieces. Traveling
carousels can also be manufactured with little variation from those
fixed in place except that the steel center pole is hinged so it will
fold in half to be transported in a van. All the other pieces can be
broken down by two men in about 3 hours and carried in a truck including
a platform made in sections and the horses that have the metal hangers
removed from them.

The carousel builder purchases a band organ for the "new"
carousel from a specialty manufacturer. Today, the Stinson Organ Company
of Ohio is the only manufacturer to still make custom and productline
band organs; five or six manufacturers including Wurlitzer made band
organs during the heyday of the American carousel, and many other organs
were imported. Band organs are played by air pushed by a bellows through
wooden pipes, stops, and valves. Because the wood parts are highly
subject to temperature and humidity changes, the organs are constantly
out of tune and require considerable maintenance. They make music by
forcing air through perforated paper rolls, much like a player piano,
and the rolls cycle continuously from one to another, thanks to a device
called a tracker frame developed by Wurlitzer. Although there is no
sound like a real carousel band organ, maintenance costs often force
buyers of "new" carousels to use tapes or compact discs
for their music.

The romance of the carousel rides with its animals, however, and the
auction prices of up to $60,000 per horse for antique ponies have
brought a new awareness to the importance of equipping a new carousel
with the genuine article. Amateur carvers and woodworkers have also been
attracted to the carving of carousel critters; and body blocks that
include the body, head and neck, tail, and legs can be purchased in
various sizes for carving.

Assuming the carousel builder is carving a wooden horse from scratch, he
chooses a size and weight suitable to the overall design of the carousel
and selects an appropriate artistic design. This may be based on
a theme for the carousel or on the customer's favorite historic
model. The outside of the carousel animal is called the
"romance" side and is seen by onlookers. This display side
is usually more ornately decorated than the inside. Many of the original
carousel designers made full-scale sketches of their horses so that
details were properly conceptualized and scaled and so that several
carvers could work on parts of the same horse. Today, one-eighth scale
models are sometimes made for the designer's models and the
customer's approval.

Full-scale paper patterns are glued to pieces of basswood to cut the
body, legs, and other parts. Basswood is used because it is hard and
close-grained, and the grain must run the length of the part for
strength. A jigsaw or coping saw is used to cut the parts, and the parts
are glued together to form the carving block. In the old days, the
"glue-up" was done by a skilled craftsman who was an
expert at the types of glue, amounts, and pressures required to prepare
the carving block.

Each carver has his own preferences for how to proceed with carving.
Many start by using the paper patterns still glued to the animal to
rough-cut the shapes, a process called boasting. Detailed carving
follows, and this is usually done without reference to patterns but with
a sense of the wood grain and the artistic creation that has been
trapped in the wood. The completed carving block is sanded, and
sometimes other small details are glued on. If the animal is for
display, rather than for a working carousel, a base or stand suitable to
the size and configuration of the beast is also made. A footrest is also
made for each animal (unless it has stirrups or other substitutes), and
these are carved and painted to match the animal. Preparation of a
carousel animal up to the painting stage typically takes about 35 hours
per animal.

The carved horse is stained, primed and painted, and varnished to suit
the design of the carousel. Platforms are painted to complement the
carving, but overhangs are sometimes brightly colored to highlight the
details of both the overhangs and the animals. Traditionally, the
animals are painted bright colors, and the paints are chosen for
durability and safety as well as appearance. Removal of old paint may be
one of the most time-consuming tasks in refurbishing old animals; some
have as many as 30 coats of paint that have filled the finely carved
details. Dappling, addition of gold or silver leaf, placement of
horsehair tails, and burnishing of metallic leaf provide other touches
of realism and elegance. Rhinestones and other jewels are often added to
the romance side of the finished horse.

The Future

According to carousel maker Chuck Kaparich, carousels and carousel animals
are experiencing a resurgence. Thanks to the drawing power of the colorful
carousel display and music, historic town centers and shopping malls are
commissioning new carousels or refurbishing their old ones to attract
customers to these areas. Kaparich expects the romance of the carousel to
always remain with the American public, but, realistically, he
acknowledges the limited demand and the likelihood that the present
resurgence may only have a lifespan of 10 to 20 years before carousels are
again temporarily forgotten. It is hoped that new generations of carousel
aficionados will recall the current boom and add the magic of their
mounts, music, and motion to a bank of undying memories.